Unforgettable Love Story

A reader of my blogs sent me this interesting story. On the surface it makes sense, but if you look just a bit deeper you will see the flaws in its reasoning. These flaws in reasoning are common to all people living in our society today, and are the reason that we have the problems that we do have.

Please enjoy the story and then follow through by reading my comments on it…

Drug Problems - The Story

The other day, someone at a store in a small Midwestern town read that a methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farm house in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, “Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I smiled and replied, “I did have a drug problem when I was a kid growing up on the farm in southeast Missouri.

“I had a drug problem when I was young:

“I was drug to church on Sunday morning.

“I was drug to church for weddings and funerals.

“I was drug to family reunions and community socials, no matter the weather.

“I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults and teachers.

“I was also drug to the wood shed and beaten savagely when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher. Or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

“I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden, and flower beds, and cockleburs out of dad’s soybean fields.

“Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack or heroin, and if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America might be a better place today.”

Drug Problems - The Flaws in Reasoning

Those people of yesterday are the leaders, the teachers, of those of us who are living today. They are the creators of the life and culture we live in toady. It is their teaching, that we can force others to do the “right thing”, which is the root of the problems we face today.

What is the “right thing?” Well that is another problem; the assumption that there is one “right thing” and that any individual knows what the “wrong thing” for another person is.

We each can only know what is right for us. And we each can only know what is right for us in this now moment. Tomorrow, next week, or next year that right thing may now be the wrong thing and the wrong thing may now be the right thing.

The perfection in life is in our evolution. Evolution comes as we are faced with our previous creations, and we decide what we don’t like, and from that is born greater clarity on what we do want to create. From that point on, we need to focus on what we do want, rather than on blaming and complaining and focusing on what we don’t want.

In the past, for the entire history of mankind it seems, we believed forcing others to do the right thing made our world a better place to live in. Yet, has there ever been a time when we did not see problems in our world, or in the people who inhabit it? Can you see that this belief has never worked?

Forcing others to do something, anything, says to them, “You don’t matter. Your opinions, ideas, beliefs, and desires don’t matter. We know better than you.” Repeated over and over, as a person grows up from a child to an adult, this message is hypnotic and creates low self-esteem in the individual who had different ideas.

People with low self-esteem are not playing with a full deck. They are confused, delusional, needy, angry, violent and insane. Sadly this is most of the people on the planet. They are not people who know what the right thing is for themselves, let alone for other people.

Yet it is precisely these same people, with low self-esteem who are dragging others about by the ears and forcing them to do the “right thing,” merely because they have enough physical power to do so.

A person with true self-esteem, true wisdom, true understanding of life, demonstrates their wisdom in the way they live. Others flock to them to learn their secrets. They are loved in ways that most of us can only dream about being loved. They lead others by their example. And they love others unconditionally.

Yes, unconditional love really does mean loving regardless of the conditions.

Do you know what Nelson Mandela did in prison? He treated his guards, the very people who kept him in prison and even abused him, as real people. He asked them about their families and conversed with them as friends do. He became the president of the very country that imprisoned him.

How about Gandhi? He would rather starve his own body than let the people he loved go on striking back at their abusers. Thus he led a nation to free itself from the tyranny of a foreign government. Millions of people in India got to learn firsthand, by personal experience, that all people matter, no matter what they say or do. The rest of the world got to learn by observing this process.

Jesus Christ forgave the very people who tortured and crucified him. He knew there was no such thing as death and thus he showed us all the impermanence of erroneous thoughts, and the permanence of Truth and Life itself. Two thousand years later we still hold him up as a prime example of what is possible for all of mankind.

To be continued…

Kind Regards,

Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

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